Seagate Technology — originally Shugart Technology Inc. — sold a a 5.25-inch, 5-Mbyte drive for $1,500. The industry is still working hard to make sure that Shugart’s words still ring true. Sure things have changed a lot since then.

And now, they have demonstrated the first 1TB/square inch density hard drive, with the possibility of scaling up to 60TB by 2030.

SanDisk Corporation

Most technology enthusiast and consumer end users might not know it, but flash memory maker SanDisk is present in almost things that hold data. The company is arguably one of the biggest when it comes to manufacturing and market share of flash memory products, and their products (first-party or rebranded), can be found in most handsets, digital cameras and tablets.

The company was founded in 1988 by Dr. Eli Harari and Sanjay Mehrotra, non-volatile memory technology experts, and became a publicly traded company on NASDAQ in November 1995.

SanDisk Enterprise was created to provide a solution for enterprises and government agencies to allow mobilization of the corporate computing environment with password protected USB flash drives. The company attempts to address the organization’s risk management needs.

Samsung Storage Devices

Lee Byung-chull founded Samsung Group in 1938, naming the start-up company a Korean word which translates to “three stars” in English.

The Samsung Groups is a South Korean multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous international affiliated businesses, most of them united under the Samsung brand.

Samsung is a major manufacturer in a number of industries including the all-important flash memory arena.

But, I heard rumours that Samsung wanted out of its loss-making hard drive business. So, They sold off its hard drive operations to the world’s largest HDD manufacturer Seagate.

Hitachi

Hitachi was founded in 1910 in the mountains of Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan.

The first Hitachi product was a 5-hp induction electric motor.

Hitachi’s first export was the electric fan in 1926 and the destination country was the US.

Hitachi produces everything from bullet trains to washing machines.

Operating Systems

Operating Systems for PC

Windows

Windows 8 is the current release of the Windows operating system, produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablets, and home theatre PCs.

New features and functionality in Windows 8 include a faster startup through UEFI integration and the new “Hybrid Boot” mode (which hibernates the Windows kernel on shutdown to speed up the subsequent boot), a new lock screen with a clock and notifications, and the ability for enterprise users to create live USB versions of Windows (known as Windows To Go). Windows 8 also adds native support for USB 3.0 devices, which allow for faster data transfers and improved power management with compatible devices, along with support for near field communication to facilitate sharing and communication between devices.
Windows Explorer, which has been also renamed File Explorer, now includes a ribbon in place of the command bar. File operation dialogs have been updated to provide more detailed statistics, the ability to pause file transfers, and improvements in the ability to manage conflicts when copying files. A new “File History” function allows incremental revisions of files to be backed up to and restored from a secondary storage device, while Storage Spaces allows users to combine different sized hard disks into virtual drives and specify mirroring, parity, or no redundancy on a folder-by-folder basis. Task Manager has also been redesigned, including a new processes tab with the option to display fewer or more details of running applications and background processes, a heat map using different colors indicating the level of resource usage, network and disk counters, grouping by process type (e.g. applications, background processes and Windows processes), friendly names for processes and a new option which allows to search the web to find information about obscure processes. Additionally, the Blue Screen of Death has been updated with a simpler and modern design with less technical information displayed.

Windows 8 also introduces a new shell and user interface based on Microsoft’s “Metro” design language, featuring a new Start screen with a grid of dynamically updating tiles to represent applications, a new app platform with an emphasis on touchscreen input, the new Windows Store to obtain and purchase applications for the system, and the ability to synchronize programs and settings between multiple devices.

Mac OS X

Mac OS X, is a series of Unix-based graphical interface operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. It is designed to run exclusively on Mac computers, having been pre-loaded on all Macs since 2002. It was the successor to Mac OS 9, released in 1999, the final release of the “classic” Mac OS, which had been Apple’s primary operating system since 1984.

OS X v10.8 “Mountain Lion” was announced on February 16, 2012, and was released online via the App Store on July 25. It incorporates some features seen in iOS 5. These include Game Center, support for iMessage in the new Messages messaging application, and Reminders as a to-do list app separate from iCal (which is renamed as Calendar, like the iOS app). It also includes support for storing iWork documents in iCloud. Notification Center, which makes its debut in Mountain Lion, is a desktop version similar to the one in iOS 5.0 and higher. Application pop-ups are now concentrated on the corner of the screen, and the Center itself is pulled from the right side of the screen. Mountain Lion also includes more Chinese features including support for Baidu as an option for Safari search engine, QQ, 163.com and 126.com services for Mail, Contacts and Calendar, Youku, Tudou and Sina Weibo are integrated into share sheets.

Operating Systems for Servers

Linux

Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of Linux is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released 5 October 1991 by Linus Torvalds.

Linux was originally developed as a free operating system for Intel x86-based personal computers.It has since been ported to more computer hardware platforms than any other operating system. It is a leading operating system on servers and other big iron systems such as mainframe computers and supercomputers: more than 90% of today’s 500 fastest supercomputers run some variant of Linux, including the 10 fastest. Linux also runs on embedded systems (devices where the operating system is typically built into the firmware and highly tailored to the system) such as mobile phones, tablet computers, network routers, televisions and video game consoles; the Android system in wide use on mobile devices is built on the Linux kernel.

Windows Server

Windows Server 2012 is the server version of Windows 8 and the successor to Windows Server 2008 R2. The software was generally available to customers starting on September 4, 2012 and worldwide through multiple channels in September 2012.

Unlike its predecessor, Windows Server 2012 has no support for Itanium-based computers, and has four editions. Various features were added or improved over Windows Server 2008 R2, such as an updated version of Hyper-V, an IP address management role, a new version of Windows Task Manager, and the new ReFS file system.

Operating Systems for Mobile

Windows Phone

Windows Phone is a family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft, and is the successor to its Windows Mobile platform, although incompatible with it. Unlike its predecessor, it is primarily aimed at the consumer market rather than the enterprise market. It was first launched in October 2010, with a release in Asia following in early 2011.
With Windows Phone, Microsoft created a new user interface, featuring its design language called Modern Style UI. Additionally, the software is integrated with third party services and Microsoft services, and sets minimum requirements for the hardware on which it runs.

On June 20, 2012, Microsoft unveiled Windows Phone 8, a new generation of the operating system for release later in 2012. Windows Phone 8 will replace its previously Windows CE-based architecture with one based off the Windows NT kernel with many components shared with Windows 8, allowing applications to be easily ported between the two platforms.

Android

Android is a Linux-based operating system designed primarily for touch screen mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers. It is currently developed by Google in conjunction with the Open Handset Alliance. Initially developed by Android Inc, whom Google financially backed and later purchased in 2005, Android was unveiled in 2007 along with the founding of the Open Handset Alliance, a consortium of 86 hardware, software, and telecommunication companies devoted to advancing open standards for mobile devices.

While Android is designed primarily for smartphones and tablets, the open and customizable nature of the operating system allows it to be used on other electronics, including laptops and netbooks, smartbooks and smart TVs (Google TV). Further, in 2011, Google demonstrated “Android@Home”, new home automaton technology which uses Android to control a range of household devices including light switches, power sockets and thermostats. Prototype light bulbs were announced that could be controlled from an Android phone or tablet, but Android head Andy Rubin was cautious to note that “turning a lightbulb on and off is nothing new,” pointing to numerous failed home automaton services. Google, he said, was thinking more ambitiously and the intention was to use their position as a cloud services provider to bring Google products into customers’ homes, adding “Google is really uniquely positioned to make consumers’ lives a lot better and make the 20 screens you have in your home interoperate.”

iOS

iOS is a mobile operating system developed and distributed by Apple Inc. Originally released in 2007 for the iPhone and iPod Touch, it has been extended to support other Apple devices such as the iPad and Apple TV. Unlike Microsoft’s Windows Phone (Windows CE) and Google’s Android, Apple does not license iOS for installation on non-Apple hardware.

The user interface of iOS is based on the concept of direct manipulation, using multi-touch gestures. Interface control elements consist of sliders, switches, and buttons. Interaction with the OS includes gestures such as swipe, tap, pinch, and reverse pinch, all of which have specific definitions within the context of the iOS operating system and its multi-touch interface. Internal accelerometers are used by some applications to respond to shaking the device (one common result is the undo command) or rotating it in three dimensions (one common result is switching from portrait to landscape mode).

– compiled from many sources such as wikipedia.org, encyclopedia.com, geek.com, etc.